Tag Archives: reflection

September 15th 2012, I google myself and I get a plethora of results pertaining to me. December 13th 2012, I google myself and I still receive the same amount of results. In terms of how I put myself into social media, nothing has changed in the past three to four months. What has changed, however, is my outlook. When I was a lot younger, I always signed up for social networking sites that I thought could be fun. I never really used them, but I always had fun with it for a little while. While I was signing up for these sites, I never payed attention to my “digital footprint”, it was more so just “I want people to know my name!” and so the adventure began.

Now, I’m seeing having signed up for all those sites was a poor decision. As I said in my earlier post, I tried to go back and deactivate my accounts – but to no avail. There was a lot I never considered with my social media impact; business being one of those things. People always said to watch out for what you’re posting on Twitter and Facebook, because you never know who’s reading your posts… I never really cared until now; until I took this course and realized how important your footprint is to your business life. I go through pictures of some of the people I have on my Facebook and I think “Would I hire that person?” I mean, if you’re wearing a crop-top that shows off your “YOLO” tattoo, nine times out of ten, I’m thinking “you make poor life decisions.”

So if I’m sitting in my bedroom, without the business experience and background thinking “I wouldn’t hire that person”, what’s it like to be the CEO of a huge company and looking at a half-naked girl’s profile pictures with gnarly tattoos? Does your opinion change once you’re in that position? I don’t think it does. Etiquette and social responsibility are evidently important, and I’ve stopped taking that for granted.

I’ve considered myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to social media. I can’t say I learned too much more than what I already knew. I can say, however, that this course has put it into perspective for me. It’s not so much “Ah! What a revelation! I’m cured of all my horrid Facebook posts and tweets!” It’s more so, I take into consideration what I’m saying before I say it. If you read my tweets, that might not be terribly apparent. Honestly, I used to tweet nonstop throughout the day; I’ve rolled it back a bit. I don’t swear in my tweets, and I don’t post horrible pictures of myself. I think that’s what this course has given me.

In relation to my first entry: not much has changed. I’m still the same avid blogger that started this course, and I will continue to be. But I’m much more aware of what I’m saying now, and I think that goes a long way in terms of business. I don’t want to end up tweeting something absolutely tragic, lose a job opportunity over it, and then regret that decision of thinking “man, this will get so many retweets”. That’s not what business is about; it’s about a clean, appropriate way of getting your message out there and making a profit. Social media is just one key element to making that happen.